I just finished 950 words for OnSite magazine about the ideology of Google's geo-spatial applications. It was a mean bastard to write. I guess I have to explain how I go about these things. Many many years of essay writing (mostly in school) have been turned into a set way of doing things I don't seem able to avoid.
First. I start writing any damned thing that comes into my head. Paragraph after paragraph, page after page. I don't think. I type as fast as I can. When I reach a thought that doesn't connect in even the slightest way to the one before it, I change the colour of the letters. And on and on. I usually let this continue until I have about 5 times as many words as I will need for the final product. Then I open a new file and start again, from a completely different perspective, with a completely different point. Sometimes this continues until I have 6 or 7 unrelated documents. Then I stop writing and try to think about what the fuck I actually want to say. The piece I did immediately before this one had 9 different versions and almost 20 000 words for a final product of only 800 (that I later cut down to 500 without sacrificing very much).
Some people might think it would be more useful and efficient to think first and then start writing. Every experience I have ever had trying to write something tells me this is a bad idea. There is too much pressure. You start to think and then you have a good idea and need to write it down. Then you stop thinking so you can type and BANG, you're fucked. One paragraph (probably a good one) but where does it go? How does it fit? What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Don't fall for thinking just because it seems important. It isn't. If you are writing something, writing is far more important than thinking.
So, once I have all those different nonsense almost-essays written and I have an idea what I am actually trying to say, I'll start a new document. This one will be all bold and just composed of headings. That allows me to go back through all the shit I wrote before and cherrypick the happy accidents - good sentences I have no right to expect but often (somehow) show up anyway. That will be the bare bones of the thing. Then I go at it like it was a new piece, bulk the hell out of it in as many colours as necessary. When it gets to 5 times the length I need, I start cutting.
Erasing big chunks of text is a thrill ride. You know once it's cut, it's gone. Yes, I could get it back with CTRL+Z but I forget what I erased as soon as I erase it. It's important to be a kind of maniac at this stage. Allow myself no regrets. Just cut the shit out of it. Until all I have left are a few paragraphs.
This is when I go through and look for characteristic fuck-ups I have when I write really fast. Every other sentence starts with AND or BUT. This happens because I'm trying to think as I write and the thoughts just keep coming (only if I type too fast to get bogged down with style). Then I look for m-dashes. I use these all the time. I don't know the rules for using them, they are the punctuation of last resort. Not a comma or a semi-colon. So m-dash. Once all the usual flaws are found and fixed I sit on it for a few days - provided I have the time. I didn't for this last thing so I had to keep slogging.
Once the piece is about 90% finished, I have a panic attack. That causes me to start again from a completely new angle. Typically, this is the strangest possible way I can think of for doing the thing. This last one was supposed to be about the ideology of Google Maps so my panic version was some insanity about the possibility everything we see in Google is actually 2 feet to the right of where it is in reality. I called this the "Dexter Conspiracy". Mostly, I just needed to write something that was definitely worse than what I had already to convince me to go back and finish the fucking thing.
The last few days (or hours depending on how long I left myself) are getting rid of all alliteration - I fucking hate alliteration - making certain the paragraphs follow a sensible order and trying to get a few nice sentences into the thing. Then I leave it for a couple hours, re-read it to make certain it's ready to go and I send it off. If I'm being strict with myself, the thing isn't done until there are no words that can be erased (or replaced with shorter words) without changing the meaning of the thing. It makes for a gruelling read on larger pieces but it's how I like my work. Other people can do flowery, I like terse.
There are other, much better, ways to write and I use them when I can. One is to take a digital recorder in my car and dictate while I drive around. That often works. Another is to write the whole thing long-hand. I always do that for things over 5000 words. The best, though, is writing with a beautiful woman in the room. I don't think it's any kind of inspiration and I don't believe in the muses like the Greeks and Romans did. I just perform better when I'm trying to impress someone.
The beautiful woman in the room theory of writing has one significant draw-back. It almost always results in better prose but the woman ends up thinking I'm a crazy person. There is music in words. Put them together and you have rhythm. Be careful with the disposition of hard consonants and sibilants and you get something like a song. But to do this correctly, I have to conduct myself through the composition, waving my arms around like a mad bastard. It's not pretty to watch. And I look insane. I know the people who write better than I do generally do so because A) they write more, B) they read more, and in some cases C) they have a gift for language I do not. I don't think C is really that important unless we are talking about people who have a really spectacular gift. I don't think of myself as a gifted writer because I'm not and because I don't need the pressure.
Anyhow, I'm glad this piece is done. I proposed it because I thought for certain there would be something to it (but I didn't bother to try to figure out what until later). It was harder to find something worth justifying 1000 words in print than I thought it would be.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
On HBO
HBO has all be the tv. They also have all the best opening titles. My friend Bill got me started watching True Detective. What makes them true? I have no idea but two episodes and I'm already hooked. Watch it just for the opening titles which, like True Blood, are about seven minutes long. About the "true" thing. True Blood makes sense - it's part of the series - but unless HBO already has a show called Fictional Detective I think they could have come up with a better name. Like More Completely Fucked Up Shit (possibly involving Satan) in Louisiana.
The problem with all HBO series is the episodes come so fucking slowly. I don't mean the pace of the shows is slow (although that's certainly true of True Detective) but that you have to wait for episodes forever. I guess making good tv shows really does take longer than making bad ones. Or maybe HBO has paid researchers to figure out precisely how to make shows addictive. Probably both.
The glacial (even tectonic) pace of Game of Thrones is all too typical. I'm sure part of that is the fear if they release more than ten episodes a year they will catch up with George RR Martin. The world's slowest writer is probably in the middle of writing another sixty page description of a meal and that's the kind of thing that can delay a book for years. Even decades. Or in Martin's case, centuries. I think someone should start a pool for the release date of Martin's next book. I would take July, 2019.
I wonder why more networks aren't looking at HBO and thinking, "Hey, that could be us!" If I owned a network (I don't even own a television so this isn't something I need to worry about with any real immediacy but still, I worry) I would want it to be like HBO. I wonder if it is more expensive per year to make shows that cost more individually? Game of Thrones films in Iceland and all over the place, plus they have all the sets and costumes and dragons (which probably aren't cheap). True Blood doesn't look like an expensive show to make. It's a nice looking show. High quality. But not garishly, ostentatiously expensive. True Detective looks like the 90s. I don't think that could be very expensive. Maybe having movie stars ups the budget. What would I know.
Part of the reason the wait for new episodes of HBO shows feels like it takes forever is the rest of tv is so disappointing. Person of Interest used to be interesting, now it's pretty lame. They couldn't resist the "make it bigger" trap. They added a plot that spanned a whole season about corrupt cops and when that was through, had to find an even bigger "enemy" for the good guys to fight. So they did. And then an even bigger one and a bigger one after that. Pretty soon three people and a dog are going to be taking on an extra-terrestrial armada of warships (without anyone noticing).
Elementary is on hiatus, as are Grey's Anatomy, True Blood, Sherlock (after a complete let-down of a third season), even Top Gear. So I will impatiently wait for the next episode of True Detective while I worry about all the reasons I am unqualified to run a major television network.
The problem with all HBO series is the episodes come so fucking slowly. I don't mean the pace of the shows is slow (although that's certainly true of True Detective) but that you have to wait for episodes forever. I guess making good tv shows really does take longer than making bad ones. Or maybe HBO has paid researchers to figure out precisely how to make shows addictive. Probably both.
The glacial (even tectonic) pace of Game of Thrones is all too typical. I'm sure part of that is the fear if they release more than ten episodes a year they will catch up with George RR Martin. The world's slowest writer is probably in the middle of writing another sixty page description of a meal and that's the kind of thing that can delay a book for years. Even decades. Or in Martin's case, centuries. I think someone should start a pool for the release date of Martin's next book. I would take July, 2019.
I wonder why more networks aren't looking at HBO and thinking, "Hey, that could be us!" If I owned a network (I don't even own a television so this isn't something I need to worry about with any real immediacy but still, I worry) I would want it to be like HBO. I wonder if it is more expensive per year to make shows that cost more individually? Game of Thrones films in Iceland and all over the place, plus they have all the sets and costumes and dragons (which probably aren't cheap). True Blood doesn't look like an expensive show to make. It's a nice looking show. High quality. But not garishly, ostentatiously expensive. True Detective looks like the 90s. I don't think that could be very expensive. Maybe having movie stars ups the budget. What would I know.
Part of the reason the wait for new episodes of HBO shows feels like it takes forever is the rest of tv is so disappointing. Person of Interest used to be interesting, now it's pretty lame. They couldn't resist the "make it bigger" trap. They added a plot that spanned a whole season about corrupt cops and when that was through, had to find an even bigger "enemy" for the good guys to fight. So they did. And then an even bigger one and a bigger one after that. Pretty soon three people and a dog are going to be taking on an extra-terrestrial armada of warships (without anyone noticing).
Elementary is on hiatus, as are Grey's Anatomy, True Blood, Sherlock (after a complete let-down of a third season), even Top Gear. So I will impatiently wait for the next episode of True Detective while I worry about all the reasons I am unqualified to run a major television network.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
On the Insanity of our Financial System
Here is Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi on HSBC's punishment for laundering $9B for drug lords - HERE
You should really read it but here is the gist: The US government decided it couldn't prosecute HSBC for laundering $9B in drug money because the bank was too important to the financial system. Instead they made them pay a fine and "partially defer" the bonus payments of those executives involved. No one knows what "partially defer" means.
Taibbi does an excellent job of pointing out the incredible hypocrisy of this decision and contrasting it with the punishments meted out to drug users (and non-drug users) as part of the War on Drugs. I think the part that really deserves attention is the fact most of the bankers involved were fired. If they were so important to the financial system they couldn't be prosecuted, how could they be fired? The story does have a clear moral - if you are a banker, you can get away with murder. Probably literally.
The whole thing smells like shit - as news from the world of finance typically does. It reminds me of the investigators conclusions following the 2007 meltdown. At the time they ruled the system was out of control and needed to be changed but the only ones with sufficient knowledge of how the system worked were the bankers who didn't want it changed (or, more accurately, wanted to change it in the complete opposite way). The result being no change, no prosecutions, no indictments, no nothing. Except a small nation of newly homeless families living in parks and abandoned lots.
I think the world would be a much better place if we acknowledged the readily apparent fact that our financial system is not only dangerous, it's beyond our understanding. We all saw this when the Queen of England asked the professors from the London School of Economics why no one saw the collapse coming and they couldn't answer.
I'm not an economist but here are some relevant facts as I see them. People make money when the prices of things change. The more change there is the more money someone will make. The richest people in the world therefore have a reason to prefer a volatile market to a stable one. The huge majority of people have every reason to prefer a stable market to a volatile one. We are a society of people hoping we can just hold on until we get a break but that break ain't coming. The game is rigged; we already know who's going to win and it ain't you or me.
I know there are already endless complaints and this is just one more. I wish I could think of something more useful than complaint. But I can't. And thinking about it too long makes me angry and sad. No wonder I spend so much time watching reruns or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
You should really read it but here is the gist: The US government decided it couldn't prosecute HSBC for laundering $9B in drug money because the bank was too important to the financial system. Instead they made them pay a fine and "partially defer" the bonus payments of those executives involved. No one knows what "partially defer" means.
Taibbi does an excellent job of pointing out the incredible hypocrisy of this decision and contrasting it with the punishments meted out to drug users (and non-drug users) as part of the War on Drugs. I think the part that really deserves attention is the fact most of the bankers involved were fired. If they were so important to the financial system they couldn't be prosecuted, how could they be fired? The story does have a clear moral - if you are a banker, you can get away with murder. Probably literally.
The whole thing smells like shit - as news from the world of finance typically does. It reminds me of the investigators conclusions following the 2007 meltdown. At the time they ruled the system was out of control and needed to be changed but the only ones with sufficient knowledge of how the system worked were the bankers who didn't want it changed (or, more accurately, wanted to change it in the complete opposite way). The result being no change, no prosecutions, no indictments, no nothing. Except a small nation of newly homeless families living in parks and abandoned lots.
I think the world would be a much better place if we acknowledged the readily apparent fact that our financial system is not only dangerous, it's beyond our understanding. We all saw this when the Queen of England asked the professors from the London School of Economics why no one saw the collapse coming and they couldn't answer.
I'm not an economist but here are some relevant facts as I see them. People make money when the prices of things change. The more change there is the more money someone will make. The richest people in the world therefore have a reason to prefer a volatile market to a stable one. The huge majority of people have every reason to prefer a stable market to a volatile one. We are a society of people hoping we can just hold on until we get a break but that break ain't coming. The game is rigged; we already know who's going to win and it ain't you or me.
I know there are already endless complaints and this is just one more. I wish I could think of something more useful than complaint. But I can't. And thinking about it too long makes me angry and sad. No wonder I spend so much time watching reruns or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
I Call Bullshit on the Holstee Power Manifesto
This is the Holstee Power Manifesto:
It's bullshit. That's all.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
On BtVS
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS for short) remains the benchmark for judging television programs. People make jokes about it, critical darling, over-rated. It is still the best tv show ever. What made it great was the introduction of Spike and Dru - the recognition the dramatic tension of a vampire love interest (the sometimes ridiculous David Boreanaz) was insufficient to drive the show and the revelation that the villains were far more interesting than the heroes (the obvious exception being Alyson Hannigan's Willow). Although the show ran for 7 seasons, season 3 is still the high point for me. It is BtVS at its very best: funny, winning, complex, and deeply odd. Mostly because of the villain – the Mayor.
Compare the Mayor to the Governor from The Walking Dead. They gave the Governor the better part of a season and a half to try to add flesh to a 2D caricature. And it didn't work. The attempts to give him depth and a psychological reality failed badly. The Mayor, on the other hand, had a kind of reality to him despite the disadvantage of being blatantly, obviously, and intentionally ridiculous. He was evil because he wanted to be and no other reason. Yet, his fatherly relationship with Faith made him both interesting and hilariously funny. There is probably no other tv show in history in which an out and out villain uses the words, "miniature golf" or dresses down his henchmen for cursing.
Books have been written (and more surprisingly published) about the philosophy of BtVS and the Mayor always features prominently in them. He is Janus. Not literally, Janus is invoked in season 2 to make all the kids become what they have dressed up as for Halloween. The Mayor is benevolent and malign, caring and destructive, thoughtful and thoughtlessly evil. You can think deeply about this kind of duality but I prefer to just enjoy the character, brought lovingly to life by the wildly under-appreciated Harry Groener.
The IMDB has a page of quotes from the Mayor and it's worth having a look at, if you aren't going to watch the whole season again. I'm going to watch the whole season again. I have all the episodes on old VCR tapes but no VCR. I used to have them all on DVD. Probably still do in a box somewhere. I guess I'll download them. Something the Mayor would scold me for.
NOTE: this part was added later.
It's funny watching these episodes now. The first thing I noticed was no cell phones. That's impossible to imagine these days. When Buffy disappears at the end of season 2, there is no Facebook page to keep her friends up to date. There is a classroom with computers in it (great white hulking things) but that class was presumably canceled when Angel killed the teacher. These kids don't carry laptops. No iPads or iPods either. Oz wears a huge Walkman in some of the episodes. They spend all their in-school time in the library. Where the books live, according to Willow. But no digital index, nothing we would identify as technology at all. Giles still uses a rotary dial phone! I'm pretty sure those won't work on the regular phone lines anymore. I am middle aged but this shit makes me feel old. Season 3 was broadcast in 1998! 15 years later and being a teenager is no longer about the simple joys of slaying vampires. These days it's all about the fancy geegaws.
Compare the Mayor to the Governor from The Walking Dead. They gave the Governor the better part of a season and a half to try to add flesh to a 2D caricature. And it didn't work. The attempts to give him depth and a psychological reality failed badly. The Mayor, on the other hand, had a kind of reality to him despite the disadvantage of being blatantly, obviously, and intentionally ridiculous. He was evil because he wanted to be and no other reason. Yet, his fatherly relationship with Faith made him both interesting and hilariously funny. There is probably no other tv show in history in which an out and out villain uses the words, "miniature golf" or dresses down his henchmen for cursing.
Books have been written (and more surprisingly published) about the philosophy of BtVS and the Mayor always features prominently in them. He is Janus. Not literally, Janus is invoked in season 2 to make all the kids become what they have dressed up as for Halloween. The Mayor is benevolent and malign, caring and destructive, thoughtful and thoughtlessly evil. You can think deeply about this kind of duality but I prefer to just enjoy the character, brought lovingly to life by the wildly under-appreciated Harry Groener.
The IMDB has a page of quotes from the Mayor and it's worth having a look at, if you aren't going to watch the whole season again. I'm going to watch the whole season again. I have all the episodes on old VCR tapes but no VCR. I used to have them all on DVD. Probably still do in a box somewhere. I guess I'll download them. Something the Mayor would scold me for.
NOTE: this part was added later.
It's funny watching these episodes now. The first thing I noticed was no cell phones. That's impossible to imagine these days. When Buffy disappears at the end of season 2, there is no Facebook page to keep her friends up to date. There is a classroom with computers in it (great white hulking things) but that class was presumably canceled when Angel killed the teacher. These kids don't carry laptops. No iPads or iPods either. Oz wears a huge Walkman in some of the episodes. They spend all their in-school time in the library. Where the books live, according to Willow. But no digital index, nothing we would identify as technology at all. Giles still uses a rotary dial phone! I'm pretty sure those won't work on the regular phone lines anymore. I am middle aged but this shit makes me feel old. Season 3 was broadcast in 1998! 15 years later and being a teenager is no longer about the simple joys of slaying vampires. These days it's all about the fancy geegaws.
Monday, January 13, 2014
On Corb
The Toronto Star seems to go out of its way to find terrible architecture columnists. There are two architecture schools in this city (the Daniels School at U of T and Ryerson University), Waterloo (my alma mater) send most of its graduates here - how hard can it be to find someone who knows something about architecture? Today they published this shit. I know a lot of architects who dislike Corb but none of them shit on him so thoughtlessly. Mallick is the author of two books, Pearls for Vinegar and Cake or Death, which apparently qualify her to take a dump on the most important architect of the last century. While I don't want to stop at ad hominem arguments, I don't want to dissect the article either. I'm afraid if I read it again some of it might become lodged in my head.
Corb did hate cities. He shared with the makers of the Hachette World Guide (or simply "the Blue Guide") a predisposition that Roland Barthes described;
"This old Alpine myth (since it dates back to the nineteenth century) which Gide rightly associated with the Helvetico-Protestant morality and which has always functioned as a hybrid coumpound of the cult of nature and puritanism (regeneration through clean air, moral ideas at the sight of mountain-tops, summit climbing as city virtue, etc)."
It would have been tragic if any of Corb's plans for Paris were realized. They weren't. Corb is definitely part of the reason the "tower in the park" became the dominant motif for such infamous projects as Pruitt-Igoe in Toledo and Cabrini Green in Chicago. The tower in the park, we now know, is a very bad idea. Not as bad as sticking hundreds of thousands of private McMansions out where they can only be reached by the highway. Mallick doesn't have a problem with that. She seems to see some virtue in faux-Victorian bric-a-brac pasted onto generic frames. Most people (and everyone who has been educated in design) despise the near-Tudor mansion with a three car garage fronting the street. Mallick prefers to attack the Corbusian "machines for living":
"stacked slots made of cheap thin materials, sans ornamentation, with flat roofs, without distinguishing features. It's a bank of safety deposit boxes, the back room of a shoe store."
It would be helpful if we knew what buildings she was referring to. It certainly can't be the five famous villas of his early career - absolutely gorgeous buildings that caused a radical change in how architects conceived residential design. Nor is it the famous Unité in Marseilles, which remains one of the best multi-residential buildings ever built. Nor is it the cabin he built for his wife (the so-called Cabanon). Nor is it the ecclesiastical buildings that he designed and built at the end of his career. It might be the worker's houses he designed in Pessac, buildings that were very poorly constructed (and poorly detailed) and have not aged well. Far more likely it is a general complaint against modernism aimed at its most famous practitioner without sufficient research, care, or any real interest other than making a bunch of architects very angry (and getting as close to one can to "sensational" while confining oneself to design).
Rather than give a detailed history of modern architecture, which has been done before (and better), I'd like to question the logic that argues we should drive in the most sophisticated vehicles engineering can provide, have access to more processing power in our phones than NASA used for the Apollo missions, and by integrated into a world-wide digital network 24/7 but still live in houses in no substantial way different from those our grandparents lived in (or wished they could afford). Doesn't that seem a little strange?
Take a walk through the most expensive and desirable neighbourhoods in your city. Doesn't it seem strange that people will spend millions of dollars on a house that is in no way better than something built 200 years ago? Faux-Tudor, Mediterranean modern, faux-Victorian. All copies of copies of copies.
Mallick is ignorant about architecture and that's not any kind of crime. Most people are. She might wish for architecture that was more carefully detailed and more ornamental. I hope that's not a crime, I want that too. But what is criminal (or more properly negligent) is she is thoughtless about something she presumes to write about. Here she is at her most simple-minded:
"The architects of the Bauhaus - and to be fair I should be blaming the monstrous Lubwig Mies van der Rohe because Mies ultimately did more damage than Le Corb - hated colour, detail, expense, moldings, fabrics and privacy. I love those things. So do "workers." So do rich people."
Never mind the Bauhaus' textile design program. Never mind the book on colour theory written by Bauhaus professor Johannes Itten (still one of the best). These are tired complaints. No one attacks modernism anymore. There has been no reason to since before I was born! It's been done - done better and done to fucking death.
Maybe Mallick can tear herself from her next cake-based bast-seller and visit one of Corb's works - like La Tourette. There, if she has the wit (something I profoundly doubt), she can see one of the great master-works of 20th century architecture. And maybe she will see the confluences between Medieval cathedrals and Corb's sombre, thoughtful, and moving use of light. Or maybe she will just see a building with no trim, fabric, or privacy.
Corb did hate cities. He shared with the makers of the Hachette World Guide (or simply "the Blue Guide") a predisposition that Roland Barthes described;
"This old Alpine myth (since it dates back to the nineteenth century) which Gide rightly associated with the Helvetico-Protestant morality and which has always functioned as a hybrid coumpound of the cult of nature and puritanism (regeneration through clean air, moral ideas at the sight of mountain-tops, summit climbing as city virtue, etc)."
It would have been tragic if any of Corb's plans for Paris were realized. They weren't. Corb is definitely part of the reason the "tower in the park" became the dominant motif for such infamous projects as Pruitt-Igoe in Toledo and Cabrini Green in Chicago. The tower in the park, we now know, is a very bad idea. Not as bad as sticking hundreds of thousands of private McMansions out where they can only be reached by the highway. Mallick doesn't have a problem with that. She seems to see some virtue in faux-Victorian bric-a-brac pasted onto generic frames. Most people (and everyone who has been educated in design) despise the near-Tudor mansion with a three car garage fronting the street. Mallick prefers to attack the Corbusian "machines for living":
"stacked slots made of cheap thin materials, sans ornamentation, with flat roofs, without distinguishing features. It's a bank of safety deposit boxes, the back room of a shoe store."
It would be helpful if we knew what buildings she was referring to. It certainly can't be the five famous villas of his early career - absolutely gorgeous buildings that caused a radical change in how architects conceived residential design. Nor is it the famous Unité in Marseilles, which remains one of the best multi-residential buildings ever built. Nor is it the cabin he built for his wife (the so-called Cabanon). Nor is it the ecclesiastical buildings that he designed and built at the end of his career. It might be the worker's houses he designed in Pessac, buildings that were very poorly constructed (and poorly detailed) and have not aged well. Far more likely it is a general complaint against modernism aimed at its most famous practitioner without sufficient research, care, or any real interest other than making a bunch of architects very angry (and getting as close to one can to "sensational" while confining oneself to design).
Rather than give a detailed history of modern architecture, which has been done before (and better), I'd like to question the logic that argues we should drive in the most sophisticated vehicles engineering can provide, have access to more processing power in our phones than NASA used for the Apollo missions, and by integrated into a world-wide digital network 24/7 but still live in houses in no substantial way different from those our grandparents lived in (or wished they could afford). Doesn't that seem a little strange?
Take a walk through the most expensive and desirable neighbourhoods in your city. Doesn't it seem strange that people will spend millions of dollars on a house that is in no way better than something built 200 years ago? Faux-Tudor, Mediterranean modern, faux-Victorian. All copies of copies of copies.
Mallick is ignorant about architecture and that's not any kind of crime. Most people are. She might wish for architecture that was more carefully detailed and more ornamental. I hope that's not a crime, I want that too. But what is criminal (or more properly negligent) is she is thoughtless about something she presumes to write about. Here she is at her most simple-minded:
"The architects of the Bauhaus - and to be fair I should be blaming the monstrous Lubwig Mies van der Rohe because Mies ultimately did more damage than Le Corb - hated colour, detail, expense, moldings, fabrics and privacy. I love those things. So do "workers." So do rich people."
Never mind the Bauhaus' textile design program. Never mind the book on colour theory written by Bauhaus professor Johannes Itten (still one of the best). These are tired complaints. No one attacks modernism anymore. There has been no reason to since before I was born! It's been done - done better and done to fucking death.
Maybe Mallick can tear herself from her next cake-based bast-seller and visit one of Corb's works - like La Tourette. There, if she has the wit (something I profoundly doubt), she can see one of the great master-works of 20th century architecture. And maybe she will see the confluences between Medieval cathedrals and Corb's sombre, thoughtful, and moving use of light. Or maybe she will just see a building with no trim, fabric, or privacy.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Two Holmes's
Last week the long-awaited third season of Sherlock made its debut in Canada, the same week Elementary broadcast its first new episode since before Christmas. One obviously a bigger deal than the other. I'm going to be the minority opinion on this one but, of the two, Elementary was more entertaining to me. Here's why:
Right from the start of the new Sherlock I was struck by how much higher its production values are than any of the American versions. The opening credits are gorgeous, it has a full orchestra for its theme, it's just more compelling as a piece of television. But the episode took a full half hour to get started. The cliff-hanger of all cliff-hangers (if you haven't already read any of the Holmes books or seen the Robert Downey Jr big screen versions) had to be wrapped up in some narratively interesting way and it just wasn't. The episode dragged because the show's makers were so keen to demonstrate they knew there was no reasonable explanation for Sherlock's apparent suicide not to end the series. We knew it, they knew it, but no one wanted the show to end so the did a clever little, tongue-in-cheek explanation that wasn't really an explanation and bogged the whole episode down. In the end what we got was 85 minutes of Holmes and Watson's friendship and 5 minutes of a half-baked mystery plot. Yes, it was fun to look at and yes I'm glad the show is back - it will only get better from here. But it will have a long way to go to catch up with the great leap forward Elementary achieved with much less effort.
Elementary brought Holmes' nemesis Moriarity back. The show has done a lot of interesting things with her (first off, it made him a her, combining the nemesis and love interest). I'll try to give a sufficient recap without spoiling the episode for those of you who haven't seen it. One of Moriarity's cut-outs is behind a high-profile kidnapping and Sherlock thinks they can use her but only if they do so with the utmost care. As in the book, movie versions, and Sherlock Holmes has been carrying on a secret correspondence with the variously named but always present "Woman", only in this case she is also a heartless (but thankfully not insane) villain. Unlike the other version, when this is discovered he immediately shares both the content and the reasons for the epistolary relationship with Watson. Moriarity is a criminal mastermind and a useful case study, Holmes argues. Watson (in this version, she isn't an idiot) isn't fooled. She knows Holmes is still in love with Moriarity and Holmes (again, unlike the other versions of the story) doesn't bother to deny it. The basis for Holmes and Moriarity's relationship is both believe themselves unique, so far beyond the capacities and capabilities of "normal" people they are destined for each other - despite their past and continuing conflict. They are too different, too special. All the Holmes variations have this in common. The reason Holmes is allowed (to whatever degree he is allowed) to behave so badly is precisely this uniqueness. In last week's Sherlock Holmes luxuriated in his own mythology (which made for a very boring episode). He was an ass for the whole thing and the final bit of assholery didn't leave me saying, "Oh that Sherlock!" I was saying, "What an asshole." But in last week's Elementary, Holmes was revealed to be a (very slightly) pathetic figure who uses his mythology as a way of avoiding his own insecurities, failings, and fears. That is a bold move. The show survives because people enjoy the Holmes character, with his arrogance intact. The mythos is simple - it's a variation of the male power fantasy (tailored for nerds). To strike at the foundation of that myth and risk destroying the currency of the fantasy for the sake of a more interesting lead is a great move. And special props because it was so subtly done. You could choose to believe Holmes is wiser than Watson (who's inadequate romantic life made another brief appearance in the episode) and some people will. If you want to believe the Holmes mythology, you can. If you want to consider the character as something new, you can do that too (and I think you would be interpreting the show correctly).
Insufferable people make good television but there is a reason only Homer Simpson has lasted so long - they become either unbelievable or simply unlikable after too much exposure. After watching a very good cast of supporting characters simper about how wonderful Sherlock is for 90 minutes, I wasn't satisfied with Watson punching him in the face, I wanted him to get run over by a car. Or train. Or crushed by a falling safe. Anything to wipe that insufferable smirk off his face. Elementary took only 45 minutes to make me feel a kind of protectiveness for Holmes. He is so utterly inept with people he cares about and so obviously false in his grandiosity and arrogance. It was a completely unexpected turn for this component of the franchise to take and it promises some good television to come. Unless I read the episode wrong, in which case it still has Lucy Liu.
Right from the start of the new Sherlock I was struck by how much higher its production values are than any of the American versions. The opening credits are gorgeous, it has a full orchestra for its theme, it's just more compelling as a piece of television. But the episode took a full half hour to get started. The cliff-hanger of all cliff-hangers (if you haven't already read any of the Holmes books or seen the Robert Downey Jr big screen versions) had to be wrapped up in some narratively interesting way and it just wasn't. The episode dragged because the show's makers were so keen to demonstrate they knew there was no reasonable explanation for Sherlock's apparent suicide not to end the series. We knew it, they knew it, but no one wanted the show to end so the did a clever little, tongue-in-cheek explanation that wasn't really an explanation and bogged the whole episode down. In the end what we got was 85 minutes of Holmes and Watson's friendship and 5 minutes of a half-baked mystery plot. Yes, it was fun to look at and yes I'm glad the show is back - it will only get better from here. But it will have a long way to go to catch up with the great leap forward Elementary achieved with much less effort.
Elementary brought Holmes' nemesis Moriarity back. The show has done a lot of interesting things with her (first off, it made him a her, combining the nemesis and love interest). I'll try to give a sufficient recap without spoiling the episode for those of you who haven't seen it. One of Moriarity's cut-outs is behind a high-profile kidnapping and Sherlock thinks they can use her but only if they do so with the utmost care. As in the book, movie versions, and Sherlock Holmes has been carrying on a secret correspondence with the variously named but always present "Woman", only in this case she is also a heartless (but thankfully not insane) villain. Unlike the other version, when this is discovered he immediately shares both the content and the reasons for the epistolary relationship with Watson. Moriarity is a criminal mastermind and a useful case study, Holmes argues. Watson (in this version, she isn't an idiot) isn't fooled. She knows Holmes is still in love with Moriarity and Holmes (again, unlike the other versions of the story) doesn't bother to deny it. The basis for Holmes and Moriarity's relationship is both believe themselves unique, so far beyond the capacities and capabilities of "normal" people they are destined for each other - despite their past and continuing conflict. They are too different, too special. All the Holmes variations have this in common. The reason Holmes is allowed (to whatever degree he is allowed) to behave so badly is precisely this uniqueness. In last week's Sherlock Holmes luxuriated in his own mythology (which made for a very boring episode). He was an ass for the whole thing and the final bit of assholery didn't leave me saying, "Oh that Sherlock!" I was saying, "What an asshole." But in last week's Elementary, Holmes was revealed to be a (very slightly) pathetic figure who uses his mythology as a way of avoiding his own insecurities, failings, and fears. That is a bold move. The show survives because people enjoy the Holmes character, with his arrogance intact. The mythos is simple - it's a variation of the male power fantasy (tailored for nerds). To strike at the foundation of that myth and risk destroying the currency of the fantasy for the sake of a more interesting lead is a great move. And special props because it was so subtly done. You could choose to believe Holmes is wiser than Watson (who's inadequate romantic life made another brief appearance in the episode) and some people will. If you want to believe the Holmes mythology, you can. If you want to consider the character as something new, you can do that too (and I think you would be interpreting the show correctly).
Insufferable people make good television but there is a reason only Homer Simpson has lasted so long - they become either unbelievable or simply unlikable after too much exposure. After watching a very good cast of supporting characters simper about how wonderful Sherlock is for 90 minutes, I wasn't satisfied with Watson punching him in the face, I wanted him to get run over by a car. Or train. Or crushed by a falling safe. Anything to wipe that insufferable smirk off his face. Elementary took only 45 minutes to make me feel a kind of protectiveness for Holmes. He is so utterly inept with people he cares about and so obviously false in his grandiosity and arrogance. It was a completely unexpected turn for this component of the franchise to take and it promises some good television to come. Unless I read the episode wrong, in which case it still has Lucy Liu.
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